Turistas

Turistas is not really a horror or slasher movie, though it might look like one at first glance. John Stockwell doesn’t work with horror elements or jump-scares and he conceives Turistas as a realistic drama that scares the audience with its harshness and mercilessness. There is no sign of a deeper message like in John Boorman’s Deliverance, as we’re talking about a watching-once-is-enough thriller, but the movie’s quality actors and a decently built atmosphere work as they should. Too bad the ending is cut short; this is the only thing truly reminiscent of a slasher flick that doesn’t need to resolve anything and satisfies itself with a shot of the surviving characters, breathing a sigh of relief as they exit the scene. (10/01/2010)

Well, it could have been a decent massacre with detailed demonstrations of the internal arrangement of human anatomy, but apparently the creators were a bit scared of that and instead put a Brazilian pseudo-moralist in the role of the biggest villain. From his fiery speech, the movie basically stopped entertaining me because, although I am not one of the unfortunate ones who have to wander through life burdened by the immense weight of their movable and immovable property, I am against nationalizing both property and bodily organs. Whether a Marxist-Leninist theorist or a surgeon philosophizes about similar matters, both are ripe for a blow with a blunt object before they move from words to actions. (04/23/2022)